December 29th
Now Playing - Morning
I pant, feeling the soreness spread through my left arm as I rub at my arms to try and get some warmth back in them. Thankfully, it's warm enough in Konoha proper that I can't see my breath despite it being late December, but it seems that this body just doesn't like low temperatures of any kind.
"You have been avoiding me, Tomo-san." I paused at that, turning to look at the person who had approached me.
Though it was rarer, people, especially shinobi, apparently thought it was perfectly ok to sneak up on someone just to talk- or maybe that was just a professional deformation caused by the fact that we're going to be shinobi, and that's sort of what we're supposed to do?
Uchiha Itachi, Uchiha Clan Prodigy, Lv.14
How has he gone up a level in the time it took me to make 300 exp? Is he out there taking on super secret shinobi quests that I don't know of without even being a genin?!
I threw a kunai at him. He tilted his head sideways, letting it pass by him as both his eyebrows raised in incredulity.
"Gotta keep your skills sharp, Uchiha, if you want to be next clan head." And also…
Your skill level has gone up!
Shurikenjutsu Training, Lv. 15
-Your mastery of the Shuriken, Kunai and Senbon weapons, a staple of any self-respecting ninja.
I hummed in satisfaction.
The system really, really seemed to prefer me trying to hit live targets to still ones. I still couldn't aim for shit against someone trying to dodge me or while moving myself, and it wasn't exactly courteous of me…
But it provided results. Fast.
"You have not answered my questions, Tomo-san. Whenever I so much as get close, you tend to disappear." Were it not for the fact that he was a 5 year old, I might've had a chance to take him more seriously.
The fact that I was currently younger than him was irrelevant. Irrelevant, I say.
I raised an eyebrow. "Is that why you decided to corner me here?" He just looked straight at me, and I shook my head. "I've been avoiding all Uchiha with the exception of Izumi and Hazuki. I presume that you haven't abandoned the clan just to hold this conversation with me?" I sighed. His eyebrows simply rose higher. "I'm not supposed to be here, floating around Hazuki's house like some sort of vagrant, especially since she isn't here."
"But you are here, aren't you?"
I dragged out another sigh. "Are you here to kick me out, Uchiha-san?" He opened his mouth. "Yes, I know that everyone in this compound is Uchiha-san, shut up."
"That was not what I was going to say." He paused. "Is there any reason for the hostility?"
'Because you're so strong it's unfair, and you'll go on to murder the last of people I've left to love.' That's what I wanted to say. But instead, I simply huffed and turned back to my practice.
Bull's Eye! (Part 3)
As your prowess with kunai and shuriken grows, throwing objects will be more and more part of your lifestyle. Hit a target more than 20 meters away in the dead center with a Kunai.
Time Limit: 1 day Reward: 30Exp, Shurikenjutsu Training Level Up x3, +1DEX
Distance, apparently, was a negative multiplier. A strong negative multiplier, if my lack of hits in the dead center after having been at this for half an hour were anything to go by. By comparison, Bull's Eye! (Part 2) with its 15 meters was almost laughably easy.
Throw.
Throw.
Throw.
T- I ran out of kunai.
I go back over for the umpteenth time to pluck out my weapons from the target, noticing with a frown that my aim wasn't getting better with repetition- if anything, I was doing worse than 10 minutes ago.
Throw.
Th- "You are doing it wrong." The Uchiha next to me reminds me of his presence, and I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
Calm down Tomo. It's a 5-year-old.
A very smart 5-year-old.
Who is way better at this than you.
"Explain." The most minute tilt of his lips downward makes me think that he is frowning, but I honestly don't know how to read this kid. He seems to take a moment to gather his thoughts before nodding to himself.
"You've been throwing your kunai like this." He pulls out a kunai of his own, rearing back and throwing it. While his kunai sails through the air both faster and hitting harder than mine, it still fails to hit the target dead center.
I tilt my head. "That looked like a normal throw. It's how my uncle taught me to throw my own kunai anyways." In turn, he shakes his head, looking confused for a moment.
"No, it's… it looks like you are trying to overcompensate with strength for weight that isn't there. You're throwing higher, with more strength than is needed."
"Overcomp…" I trailed off, as my mind began whirring.
Trying to compensate for weight that isn't there. What could he mean by that?
Takeo taught me how to throw objects like this. If he's wrong- and while that's a big if, this is still possibly the most proficient person in the world at throwing objects who's trying to school me- it's because… he uses a Fuma Shuriken.
...hmmmm.
I had noticed that the kunai and shuriken that Hazuki had provided me were lighter than I thought, but I'd chalked that up to my recent strength and growth in general.
Could it be that the weapons I was used to handling when I was smaller were actually heavier than standard issue ones?
"Son of a no good, abandoning bastard…" I growled to myself, prompting another pair of raised eyebrows from Itachi.
I closed my eyes, ignoring him for a moment, since I couldn't quite paw at the air while someone was in front of me. I'd managed to avoid the Yamanaka psych ward quite well up until this point and I was interested in it staying that way, thank you very much.
Show me the fucking [Titles].
Titles
Fuma Clan Kid [minimize]
You are a child born in the Fuma Clan, and as such get to reap the benefits of nepotism, as well as their ridiculously large weapons.
-Learning Fuma Clan techniques speed enhanced by 30%
-Oversized Weapon Penalty reduced by 50%
-Learning Fuma Clan techniques counts as Light Activity for the purposes of Fatigue.
-Fuma Clan Reputation +10, Uchiha Clan Reputation +5
Disable the Fuma Clan Kid title, real quick?
With a sigh, I opened my eyes back up, and took another deep breath. "Ok, let me try again."
He stepped back, allowing me to get back into position before the range.
Throw.
*thunk*
Bull's Eye! (Part 3)
As your prowess with kunai and shuriken grows, throwing objects will be more and more part of your lifestyle. Hit a target more than 20 meters away in the dead center with a Kunai.
Time Limit: 1 day
Reward: 30Exp, Shurikenjutsu Training Level Up x3, +1DEX
I huffed out, mentally dismissing the notifications. "Well, guess I was taught wrong my whole life. Thanks for nipping it in the bud, Itachi-san." to be fair, I was probably expected to use heavier weapons, but since I barely even had anyone to teach me clan techniques...
With that depressing thought, I let myself fall backwards on the ground, arms spread wide.
-1HP! (nonlethal)
ow rock poked me in the butt
[Reputation Alert!]
Your reputation with Uchiha Itachi has increased due to being courteous and intelligent!
...how?
He sat down next to me. "I'm a bit surprised myself, to be honest." I hummed, questioning. I hadn't wanted to talk to Itachi, per se... but apparently, he'd invited himself to anyways. "Not many people are willing to accept that they were doing something wrong, let alone fix it so quickly."
"C'est la vie." I murmured to myself, prompting a raised eyebrow from him. "Prideful people making decisions are the bane of this world." Admittedly, the fact that I knew him to be so good and that he'd go on to become far stronger maybe influenced my decisions to suck it up.
More realistically, I also don't have the mentality of an actual 4 year old.
"Aren't you going to continue training?" He asked, and I blew a raspberry.
"Not really. Hitting the bullseye was my goal for the day, and I'm kind of bummed out about having to switch things around." And I barely get exp anymore from trying to shoot at the targets. Shooting three levels up will have only made it harder.
I know I need to step things up, but how? Not like I can actually ask people to volunteer for target practice.
"That is fair." He sighed. "I must return to my own training then."
[Quest Alert!]
Shurikenjutsu Training with Itachi
As your growth with Shurikenjutsu hits-
Oh fuck off game. I guess I was going to throw random bullshit at a target for all of the morning anyways, might as well do more of it if you're going to sweeten the deal.
Reluctantly, I actually scan over the quest after a moment to see what it actually wants, and what the quest gives. Flavor text, yada yada- Hit a bullseye with the [Ricochet] skill. Grants me a whopping 100 exp, brownie points with Itachi and some random other Uchiha, and a [?]reward.
Focusing on a bigger problem that the quest presents... I don't have that skill.
Also... Who's Shisui again?
"Wait up!" I hollered, jumping back up and jogging over to follow him. He turned around to stare at him, tilting his head.
"Yes?"
"Well, now that you're going to train, and I already know you're ahead of me, so I can't let you get ahead." I sighed. I couldn't well explain to him that a floating text box had told me to follow him promising me strength.
Besides, the guy had gotten a level up and maybe more exp in the time I got 300 of my 700 exp required for level 6, and his quest gave me the product of two months' worth of weekly quests. Is this how it feels to hang around a character that the plot revolves around?
He just looked at me, looking all sorts of puzzled. Eventually, he just nodded.
As he began leading the way through the outskirts of the Uchiha compound, I began taking in the sometimes curious, sometimes distrustful glances. They looked like normal people. And though Inabi had already dispelled that illusion for me, I took notice of the fact that though people that did *were* more common, they didn't all look like Itachi- or later on Sasuke did. Most of them didn't even have black hair!
And there were lot of people. Lots of them lacking the typical hitai-ate that would mark someone as a shinobi. Old men and women. Children.
Itachi really killed all these people, just out of blind faith for the village? I like Hiruzen and all, but...
Jubjub's Massacre
Itachi Uchiha-
My eyes automatically trailed over to the duration, 8 years, and I sighed as I minimized the window. No. Not now. Maybe later. I'll think about it.
Izumi would be part of the people caught in it...
What happens to normal people when they die? Do they just disappear? But that can't be the case, since I remember about a villain being able to resurrect people. His name was... Nagato?
As the thought of death began lingering in my mind, I began slowly interacting with my screen, taking longer blinks in order to interact with it while I had my eyes closed. I wonder if it was just a thing made for when you couldn't use your hands to interact, or if it was just some sort of technicality, like "touching" it with my eyelids. It had a fixed spot in my vision regardless of whether my eyes were open or closed, after all, unless I opted to disable the HUD.
As I shook those thoughts from my head, I opened the [Karma]section of the [Menu], and from there opened the Log, and then the Vices section.
Fuma Tomo Lv5
Your virtue shines bright. The shadow of death holds no power over you.
[Questions] [Log]
Log
Highest recorded Level: 7
Highest recorded Stat: 22 (INT)
Quests completed: 70
Number of times died: 2
Time spent playing: 4 years, 4 months, 20 days, 10 hours, 32 minutes
[Vices] [?]
Vices
[Purity] – 2 [?] - 1
I'm sure you're wondering what this might be. Truth be told, I have no idea. This section appeared right after I asked the system for whether or not there were consequences for dying aside from the loss of exp and the mental trauma.
I'd wondered if the other greyed out option was [Virtues], but either the system was not interested in granting me freebies just because I guessed right, or I was just wrong.
The counterintuitively named [Purity] vice, however… well, clicking on it led me back to the Skills section of my [Menu]. However, if I went about it normally, the Purity skills would not display.
Skills
Shurikenjutsu Training, Lv. 6 - 18[maximize]
Stealth, Lv.8 - 10 [maximize]
Hand Sign Dexterity Lv.3 - 7 [maximize]
Cooking Lv. 1 [maximize]
Calligraphy Lv. 1 [maximize]
Pain Resistance, Lv. 4 [maximize]
Genjutsu Resistance, Lv. 2 [maximize]
Physical Endurance, Lv.2 [maximize]
Meditation Lv.5 - 11 [maximize]
Eavesdropping Lv.1 [maximize]
Killing Intent Resistance, Lv. 1 [maximize]
Sprinting, Lv.4 - 6 [maximize]
Leaf Sticking Exercise Lv. 0 - 12 [maximize]
Observe, Lv. MAX [maximize]
You can tell which of my skills I have been prioritizing. Except for Meditation, which just seems to slowly gain EXP whenever I spend time in the menu. Cooking is nice, Calligraphy is important, but they won't exactly save me from a hundred-foot-tall chakra beast attempting to flatten my house.
…then again, as they are right now, neither would anything else that I have, except maybe Sprinting and an extreme amount of LCK. But, it'll lead me down the path of mastery anyways.
Still, the Jutsu portion now read:
Jutsu
Pure World Technique: One-Way Transition, Lv. MAX
A kinjutsu in which the user expends all of their physical and spiritual chakra, peacefully transitioning into the Pure World. Kills the user.
Hand Signs: - Chakra: All
Notes: This jutsu requires System-bound user agreement to be used.
Abso-fucking-lutely jolly. My reward for dying was, apparently, the ability to die on command.
I'll grant you, there are fates worse than death in this world. Or in the world in general. But still, for this to be my first Jutsu…
Eugh. Let's just not think about it.
"Tomo-chan!" I heard a voice holler from far away. I turned to see a name tag rapidly approaching as the older girl sprinted towards me. Unlike the rest of the surrounding ones, her name tag was yellow. Had been that way since I sent her a party request.
She did not act as though anything had changed, or as though a blue screen of light had manifest in front of her though. But I did not disband the party.
Uchiha Izumi, Uchiha Clan Kid, Lv.7
Thankfully she had the decency to not be like boy-wonder here and leave me in the dust in terms of levels. Hopefully.
"It's Tomo." I sighed, and despite her jolly attitude, I could see her eyes crinkle in just the smallest of ways in a dangerous manner. Her cheeks puffed slightly.
"Tomo-chan sounds way cuter."
"I'm not looking to sound cute."
"Look at your hair! You're never going to find a boyfriend at this rate!"
"That is the plan." she huffed, and suddenly I was being manhandled. I'd long since given up on attempting to escape her, especially after I saw that she and her mother practiced martial arts (Taijutsu?) with one another daily.
I'm not looking to repeat the experience of a nearly six year old that has absolutely no qualms about wrestling you to the ground and tickling you into submission until you agree to play doll for her.
I could feel my hair being tugged as hands ran through it and began straightening it out. "Are you trying to fix my hair or rip all of it out?!" I hissed.
"Just stop moving, I'm almost done!"
I turned to glare at Itachi, who'd stopped some way ahead of me and whose face had gone blank, though I could see a small smile on his face. "Itachi-san, act like the clan head that you are and rein in your clanmate."
That changed Izumi's tune real quick, as she noticed the presence of the other five year old. "I-Itachi-kun! S-sorry for not seeing you there, I was just… fixing up my imouto's…" she trailed of
and I turned around (as much as I could with her still trying to rip out my scalp) to see a blushing Izumi stammer out at Itachi. "...'s hair." she trailed off.
...wait
is she-
His expression returned pensive. "It's no matter, Izumi-san. However, Fuma-san here was joining me for training. She will join you later when we're done, I believe."
"Ah, I see…" she trailed off. "Good luck then, Tomo-chan…" The way her eyes kept fleeting between me and Itachi reminded me far too much of a kicked puppy for my tastes.
No matter how much it feels creepy of me to do, I guess I'm forced to now play wingman between two children.
"Come on." I sighed, grabbing Izumi's hand and tugging her forward. Though there's not a snowball's chance in hell that I would succeed at moving her normally, she was startled into taking a few steps, before her brain connected.
"Ehhh, Tomo-chan?! What are you doing?"
"You clearly wanted to join, Itachi is an ass who didn't offer, so now I'm bringing you along instead." I kept tugging her forward, until we reached the point where Itachi had stopped. He raised an eyebrow at me.
A hand was slapped over my mouth. "You can't talk to him like that, Tomo!" Izumi hissed in my ear.
I grumbled out beneath the hand. As she removed it once more, I huffed. "What's he going to do, stop us from using the training grounds?"
"Aren't you the one who said earlier you were avoiding me for precisely that reason?" Itachi just looked at me, eyebrow still raised.
"Yes." I paused as I realized that he could do that. "But will you?"
He sighed, before his fingers blurred into motion.
-1HP! (nonlethal)
ow that forehead poke hurt you dick
"Do not mistake my kindness for a lack of spine, Tomo-san. Come on, we're wasting daylight."
Yes! Mission successful! "Got it, boss man!"
-2HP! (nonlethal)
caN YOU STOP HITTING ME-
As Izumi's hand snaked back from the karate chop to my noggin, she bent down and muttered to me. "We'll need to have a talk about you trying to extort your way into things, imouto."
"Hey, I did it for you! He'd already agreed to let me join, I was getting you in on the gig too!"
"That doesn't make trying to extort Itachi-san okay!"
As we continued bickering, I swore that I saw for just the barest of moments Itachi turn back to smirk at us, though his expression returned neutral moments after.
...wait, imouto?
friendly reminder to my followers on ffnet that on ao3 you can actually see the links that I put in for chapter soundtracks
Hello everyone! It's yet another chapter. Sadly, I think I might be slowing down- today I'm posting one of the chapters that were saved up on the patron place, despite not having written anything new due to life being a mess- I'll likely try to replenish the cache back to 3 chapters ahead, if I can. As I don't want to make promises I can't keep, I would rather say that I'll likely be posting once every two weeks, and maybe I'll sneak a few bonus chapters in between when I'm not being stressed out.
Tomo and Itachi finally interacting though! ^-^ While this story won't feature Itachi as one of the main focuses (those would be Tomo, Izumi and two characters yet to be seen), he'll still be there a lot for Tomo's childhood as a result of her living in the Uchiha compound and being besties with one of his fangirls.
Also, since I received a message about it and it seemed like an interesting thing to reply to publicly...
Tomo being put in a female body is not there for the funnies. The plot largely revolves around the idea of Tomo having control of their life ripped straight from them down to their very core memories and coping with that. The gender bend element is just a (admittedly large) drop in the vase of Tomo's control being stripped away. I'll try my best to approach the topic (male identity in a female body) tastefully, but it's not a plot element included just because I felt like it.